


high society

by virginianwolfsnake



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: F/F, bisexual murder girlfriends just really having a fun evening, hello these days I write sap, jk it was me, spot who spent hours researching hypnotists in literature/film, there is really no point to this I just liked it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:15:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24362674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virginianwolfsnake/pseuds/virginianwolfsnake
Summary: georgina finally manages to find some joy at one of esmé's endless social engagements.
Relationships: Georgina Orwell/Esmé Squalor
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	high society

Georgina is becoming accustomed to Esmé’s vast, endless sea of acquaintances - and the fact that all of them seem to know her for a different reason but address her exclusively by her first name, as though she has created a two syllable brand. There are city slickers in shiny suits with coiffed hair and ostentatious wristwatches, tight-lipped old money types, overly-sincere philanthropists and occasional landed gentry. There are clinging journalists in cheap knockoffs, new wide-eyed starlets experiencing their fifteen minutes of fame, heiresses with bored, flickering smiles, droves of smug financiers and a rare oil tycoon or two. 

A part of Georgina enjoys that she is encouraged along to these events, from gala dinners to auctions to gallery openings, but a part of her also cannot help but note the puzzled looks she receives when these people cannot figure out who she is or why she is there. This does not seem to bother Esmé in the least - she defers to Georgina herself for introductions, in case she wishes to use a pseudonym, and seems unaware or uninterested in the quizzical glances. Perhaps, as accustomed to constant attention as she is, it all simply blurs into one. Unless they are all particularly stupid, Georgina imagines they can guess, but humans do quite commonly have an irritating way of seeking clarity and confirmation with their sneaky eyes.

But Georgina has never minded a bit of mystery, and all of this does give her an opportunity to wear her mother’s emeralds and watch the rich and the _nouveau riche_ alike attempt to ascertain if they are fake - and the opportunity to spend a little more time with her lover before they inevitably fall into bed in the evenings when this is all through. 

Georgina is not taken with the glamour, but she likes the politics of the whole affair. Esmé seems to care very little for it - she blitzes through long-standing feuds and soured business relationships in a whirlwind, talking and talking and charming and needling, and after a while nobody can remember if they love her or hate her. 

She won’t drag her along when she does the rounds - Georgina is more at home surveying the clamour from a distance - but she always floats back when she’s finished, usually an anecdote or three to tell and a drink in hand. 

Tonight, a film premiere. Esmé has no business at a premiere as far as Georgina can tell - but Esmé also has no business at most of the other places she spends her time. She has somehow cultivated an identity that straddles wealthy heiress, semi-famous former stage actress, fairly exclusive wealth manager, fashionista and simple socialite - and this blended persona and the resulting connections seemingly award her invitations everywhere up and down the city. Georgina has never met anyone who earns the term _social climber_ more. 

“Darling,” Esmé intones reproachfully, when she has completed a circuit and returned with a martini glass with a swirling, purplish liquid inside in each hand. She offers one out and sighs exasperatedly when Georgina regards it like an incendiary device. “I have _already_ let you off on the dress code. Could you at least make an effort with the drink? You are embarrassing me.”

Georgina rolls her eyes and takes a pointed sip of her scotch. “I suspect you’d have brought someone else tonight if you cared so much for appearances, Esmé.” Her royal blue dress is not the height of chic, but it suits her - and judging by the furtive glances Esmé has been shooting towards her cleavage all evening, she secretly agrees. “I am not going to be seen dead drinking whatever _that_ is.”

“It’s a blackberry martini, Georgie. The way you protest you make it seem like it is arsenic.”

A quirked eyebrow from the woman who has suffered through countless drinks that brought tears to her eyes and made her retch under the direction of her fashionable companion, and who recalls a relatively recent attempt to poison a rival financier. “I can never be sure, with you.”

As quickly as that, the spark of irritation in her green eyes transforms into something else entirely, and the line of her frown blossoms into a mischievous smile. 

“Georgina,” she says, tone serious but face a picture of amusement. “The only reason I will want to poison _you_ will be if you continue to make me look like I enjoy spending time in the company of unfashionable people.”

She sets her own glass down at the bar Georgina has been loitering close to, and plucks the tumbler out of her hands in a swift movement to slide it away, shoving her the thin-stemmed martini glass as a replacement. 

“ _There!_ ” Satisfied, she grins. “A compromise.”

“Do you know the meaning of the word compromise?” Georgina cannot help but splutter. 

“Of course. The one we have struck allows you to keep wearing that prim little school-teacher dress.”

Georgina thinks of asking what kind of school she attended if she classes a really rather expensive and very high quality cocktail dress as the kind of thing a teacher might wear, but then a more satisfying follow-up occurs to her. Taking a sip of her new drink, which is palatable but as sickeningly sweet as she expected, she leans against the bar languidly, other hand on her hip to display her outfit - and the wearer - to its best advantage. 

Esmé looks, because she _always_ does. Georgina doesn’t think that anyone in all her life has ever looked at her the way Esmé does, even when she’s doing so reluctantly. Watching her eyes skim over the curves she compliments _so_ enthusiastically when they are behind closed doors, tongue darting out to wet her bottom lip, makes Georgina want to throw her hard against the nearest surface and kiss any complaints from her lips, propriety be damned.

“ _Don’t_ tell me I remind you of your school instructors, Esmé,” she reprimands, tone teasing and smile wide. She twirls the cane at her side to make sure it has caught her companion’s eye, tapping the end very gently against her ankle and lowering her tone. “Unless you’d like a demonstration of how _good_ I could’ve been as an authoritarian when we get home.”

Before Esmé can translate the undisguised hunger in her eyes into words - and knowing her, words _entirely_ inappropriate for such a crowded venue - there is a little squeaky voice from beside them that shatters their moment, potentially for the better of their public reputations. 

Georgina knows the woman from an unflattering description she has heard from Esmé, though they have never been introduced - she supposes she will have to concede that the description was accurate. 

She is thin, a little shorter than Georgina, pale and round eyed. She does not have the angles in her face that Esmé does or the same sparkling eyes, but she has attempted to dress similarly, as many of the fashionable crowd have tonight. Geraldine’s dress features the latest _in_ detailing - it is black, with silver threading depicting feathers scattered across the bodice. It is somehow too dark for her, though Georgina has never met a person before who does not suit black, and the poor girl looks almost swallowed whole.

Esmé, of _course_ , is not to be outdone, and has worn actual feathers. A strapless pale powder blue gown, gathered artfully at the waist, with a plethora of feathers in striking reds, blues, purples and greens sticking up from the waist and pinned just so across the bust and the back that they splay out over her shoulder on the left side. The clip pinning her hair matches, as do the shoes, when they peek out underneath the comparatively plainer gown. Despite the clear superiority of her own outfit, Esmé offers a smile one might give to an awkward teenager trying on their mother's lipstick.

“This is very nice.” She gestures to indicate Geraldine’s attempt to join in on the latest trend, voice a touch too sweet. The barest coral flush colours the younger woman’s cheeks in response - and the combination of that and the way she leans forward, the way her brows twitch hopefully and the little breathy, self-effacing laugh, tells Georgina all she needs to know about the true interests of the little journalist. She does her best to resist a chuckle, but cannot totally suppress a smirk.

“Oh, that’s _so_ kind of you!” She is genuinely and quite comically flattered, smoothing out imaginary wrinkles in her overpowering gown as she speaks. “Of course, needless to say, it is _nothing_ to compared to yours. Will you tell me a little about it? Who made it?”

Georgina almost groans but manages to stop herself. As much as she can manage to interest herself in this long-winded explanation the first time - there is a monologue prepared about _every_ outfit - by the third it becomes a little tiresome. Georgina decides to focus into her frivolous drink for a few moments until they move past the topic, and only starts to pay proper attention again when the little brunette faces her instead, tearing her eyes away briefly from the obvious object of her affections. 

“And you are?”

Georgina will never use her real name with the press, but that doesn’t mean she has to make up something dull. She has already used Davina Korvo and Countess Cagliostro in the last couple of weeks, and hasn’t quite had enough to drink yet tonight to riskily wheel out _Svengali_ , so she takes a final sip of her cocktail while she thinks.

“Haddo,” she decides eventually, catching a roll of the eyes from the woman at her side in her peripheral vision. “Doctor Olivia Haddo.”

Geraldine notes it down without a shadow of suspicion. In the meantime, Esmé looks back at her with amusement. “And is this... your date?” the reporter asks, when she looks up again.

The others don’t ask this question in such an outright manner - but a few moments of observation show Georgina that Geraldine is not as fancy as Esmé’s other acquaintances, without the silver tongue or the inherited airs and graces. It is one thing to ignore a questioning glance, but quite another to ignore a reporter with a notepad and such a breathless eagerness for an answer. There is an uncharacteristic pause - Esmé does not usually need to so much as draw breath before answering a question - and Georgina can feel the pressure of her eyes, calculating and observing, before she answers. 

But then, after just a moment, Esmé offers a white smile to both of them. “Oh, not as such,” she flutters, with a tiny shrug of her shoulder that shakes the long feathers. “Olivia is a _dear_ old friend from out of town.”

Georgina feels curiously slighted, though she isn't sure she can explain why. She still forces a nod anyway, before her eyes fix on her empty glass.

Perhaps having noticed her unease, Esmé reaches rather abruptly with one long-nailed hand, plucking the pad from Geraldine’s and snapping it shut before returning it to her. Her smile and her tone are still pleasant, but her eyes are clear enough. “Thank you, Geraldine.”

When Geraldine has skittered away, absurdly thankful for her extremely brief interview, Esmé turns fully back to face her.

“What?” she asks plainly. Georgina winces a little - she has been working on her poker face, but evidently she has yet to make enough progress to hide her feelings from her most observant associate.

“Nothing,” she shrugs, utilising every single one of her limited acting skills - or those she had learned reading lines with Olaf a handful of times - to appear nonchalant. From the look in Esmé’s eyes, these may not be quite up to scratch. Changing tack, Georgina nods down at her glass. “ _Any_ way, when I’m wrong I’m happy to accept it, sweetheart - that was delicious. Another?”

The _sweetheart_ is a cheap trick - Esmé often brightens at a term of endearment - and the attempt to distract her by pretending to have enjoyed a fashionable drink for the first time in the years they have known each other is equally weak. Esmé groans, openly enough that they attract the attention of a gaggle of people in feather-themed outfits next to them.

“ _Really_ , Georgie?” she whines. “How long shall I settle in for this time - an hour, a day, a _week?_ You will tell me in the end; I don’t know why you insist on putting such a _process_ around it.”

Scowling openly, the optometrist slams down her glass with more force than strictly necessary. “Don’t push your luck.”

Infuriatingly, the blonde scoffs. “Well, don’t _you_ push yours.” She rolls her eyes and gives a long-suffering sigh that makes Georgina feel like a misbehaving child. “Is this about Geraldine? I know she’s an awful flirt, darling, but I can’t exactly be rude to the press, and I _hardly ever_ encourage her.”

That is not the problem, but the “hardly ever” threatens to turn it into one. Recognising the look of horror on Georgina’s face as an indicator that she may have made a slight error, Esmé quickly adjusts her approach. 

“Oh - and when I said _old_ friend, you know of course that I meant _long-standing_.”

Before she can dig herself into an even deeper hole, Georgina huffs. She is even more offended now than she was at the start.

“I didn’t realise,” she says, words clipped and cross. “That you were _genuinely_ ashamed to be seen with me.”

Esmé’s shoulders fractionally relax as she realises the real issue. Her mouth drops open slightly in her surprise - and there is a spark of something approaching warmth in her eyes that Georgina misses in her annoyance.

“Darling,” she lilts, part amused even as Georgina blatantly sulks. “I suppose you’d have preferred me to announce to the press entirely without consultation that we are in a relationship, wouldn’t you, _Doctor Olivia?_ Yes, silly me, you’d have _loved_ that. Perhaps we could have posed for photographs.”

“Well, then you’d have been photographed next to me in this featherless _rag_ ,” Georgina gripes, petulantly indicating her dress. “That could never have worked, could it?”

“You are a more difficult woman to please than you realise, do you know that?” It should be an insult, but in Esmé’s voice it sounds like something near to a compliment. “What could I have done better?”

Georgina has no answer for that, but the fact that she cannot identify a better way does not make her any happier. She sighs and shakes her head, accepting that she has perhaps been wrong and about to say as much, but before she can Esmé is muttering something unintelligible and suddenly, her hands are on her waist and sliding around the back of her neck. 

There is a moment to resist, had she wanted to - the slightest pause as Esmé hovers near to her lips - but, of course, she doesn’t. Instead, she closes the gap between them herself, pressing her lips wholeheartedly to the blonde’s and, after a moment, allowing her to deepen it. With Esmé’s tongue sliding into her mouth, hips pressing against her own, and the pressure of the fingers on the nape of her neck, Georgina forgets to wonder if anyone else has noticed. 

“Would you like me to get Geraldine back?” Esmé asks softly, when they part. “She is never very far away.”

“God, no,” Georgina laughs, and - still pressed tight against her, sharp nails curling into the curve of her waist - she knows _exactly_ what she wants instead. “I want to go _home_.”


End file.
